My first non-erotic romantic suspense in quite a while, Fatal Wild Child, just went up onto Amazon, All Romance Ebooks, and Smashwords yesterday. So it’s officially released now.

One of the things I’m finding different about self-publishing (unlike legacy publishing) is that there’s no such thing as a cast-iron release date. I can point to a date on the calendar and say “I’m uploading on this date!” but I’m still at the mercy of systems and computers that take unknown and unguessable amounts of time to compile formats and pages. Amazon, for instance, says it takes 2 business days, but the page popped up within three hours. And while I can’t access the publisher’s sales data on Fatal Wild Child, my author’s information tells me I’ve already sold copies. Yet the Amazon page isn’t showing a sales rank yet.

So it’s impossible to say a book will be released on xxx date, because it just might not be available by then even if I upload two business days before…or it could be available two days early.

This self-publishing business is so much fun!

Fatal Wild Child, although it isn’t erotic, it is sensual. I don’t think I could write a sweet romance to save my life! It’s also short. You could read it in a couple of hours, with a good cup of coffee by your elbow.

Here’s the blurb and an excerpt that isn’t the one on the book’s page:

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When Seth O’Connor pulls Gabrielle Sherborne out from under her wrecked car in the middle of an icy river high in the Canadian Rockies just before Christmas, he never thought that someone might actually be gunning for the infamous wild child of the famous Hollywood director, Cameron MacKenzie Sherborne III, and the family that puts up with her antics.

Told by his superiors to insert himself into the Sherborne family and protect Gabrielle, Seth learns that the former film star is anything but a brat. She’s all woman, incredibly sexy and smart, with a vulnerability that eats right through the armor over his heart. That makes doing his job suddenly very tough for Captain Seth O’Connor, for the unfriendlies are closing in…

She studied his profile as he drove with a non-flashy style, handling the old truck with a competence that was reassuring. He’d managed to overtake the Mustang on curves that scared most tourists, at a speed that had probably tested this truck to the limits. For a long while, the silence stretched between them, warm and comforting. She let it stay that way, enjoying the warmth. Then, knowing she had to deal with it, she sighed and asked the question.

“You never asked me for my name,” she said.

He glanced at her, the blue eyes raking her up and down in one sizzling glance.

“No,” he agreed.

“Then you recognized me,” she said, feeling a bone-sapping weariness that had nothing to do with the immersion into the icy water, or the harrowing loss of brakes in mountainous terrain.

“You’re a household name, Gabrielle Sherborne. You’re going to get upset because people recognize you?” His tone was neutral, possible even uninterested.

She swallowed. “Not recognized, no. But boast about the fact that they got to strip me naked. That’s something the tabloids would pay a lot to know about, Seth O’Connor.”

“Don’t read ’em,” he said easily. He turned the truck off the highway onto a well-ploughed road, overhung with old trees with gnarled boughs, bare now, and holding up thick layers of snow.

Ahead, there was a clearing with a big, well-founded cabin nestled under the trees at the back of it. The cabin had a wide verandah, window boxes, a big river stone chimney and a solid lean-to that looked like it served as both a garage and wood store. A gangly Irish red setter was bouncing around at the approach of the truck, its tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth.

“You don’t have to read them,” she said. “They’ll pay you anyway.”

“I already have a job and they pay me more than enough to live on.” He halted the truck with a sharp jab on the brakes, throwing her forward against the seatbelt. It should have been warning enough, she knew. She opened the door, unlatched the belt and climbed down and discovered her mistake. She stepped into snow and almost immediately felt the cold bite into her socked feet.

Seth rounded the truck. “Goddam, couldn’t you wait?”

“You don’t have to look so pleased about it,” she shot back. “They’re your socks.”

He scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes and she drew in a breath, shocked beyond words. The recent emergency aside, people didn’t touch her. Not without negotiation and permission. It wasn’t done. It tended to make security people unhappy, media people far too happy and speculative and rumors rife. She had put a general ban on people touching her even casually years ago. She had learned all the signals and motions that squashed even the most touch-happy people’s tendencies to reach out.

She clutched at Seth’s back, staring at the Irish setter trotting happily after him, as Seth marched up the steps to the cabin, and wondered if Seth was just one of those people who completely lacked any sensitivity and rode roughshod over others’ feelings.

The inside of the cabin was warm and comfortable, surprisingly neat and tidy, and not nearly as rustic as she had been expecting for a cabin on the edges of the national park. She struggled to get down, but he was still moving.

“Hey, I’ve been using my own feet since I was three,” she protested, pummeling her fist into his back.

He dumped her onto a bed and she landed with an ‘oomph!’ and brushed her hair out of her eyes, after sliding the oversized sleeve of the coat down her arm. She looked around. The bedroom was probably his, she reasoned. There was a door to the right that revealed an en suite.

Seth O’Connor stood at the side of the bed, his arms crossed over the thick chest. A furrow dug between his brows. “Take a shower, get warm,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest. “While you’re there, think about who you want to contact first. I have a land line here, so you don’t have to use a cell phone. There’s towels in the cabinet next to the shower. And I’ll find fresh clothes you can put on while you’re in there. Something closer to your size.”

He turned to go.

“Seth.”

He looked over his shoulder, the single blue eye all she could see of his face.

She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I’ve spent three years trying to off-load some of the crap I landed myself in over the years. This…felt like I was in it all over again. I prejudged you and I was wrong.”

“You did, and you were,” he said evenly. “Not everyone wants to use you, Gabrielle. Some people are actually human beings.”

“I’ll only believe that when I see them bleed,” she shot back. “Some of the people I deal with don’t even have a pulse.”

Seth turned to the door, gripped the handle. He didn’t look at her when he said softly, “I’ve bled plenty.” He shut it quietly.